Just in: First test shots of the Sony A99 digital SLR

 

 

Last week, we got to test the new Sony Alpha A99 in the field at a special Sony shooting event in San Francisco. And now we have the A99 in our lab, with our first studio test shots posted.

Here are some first impressions from IR founder and publisher Dave Etchells:

"The Sony A99 is really pretty incredible. I found the AF to be very fast and accurate, image quality seems great, and it really is lighter than the average full-frame camera. Of course, I was mostly using it with the Sony Carl Zeiss 24-70mm f/2.8, which is a big hunk of metal and glass, so the combo was still pretty heavy. But when I took the body off the lens to swap lenses, I was surprised by how light it felt. It's another really great new camera from Sony, but I thought I couldn't really do justice to it, because I wasn't familiar with what it did in various conditions and with various settings. For example, I cranked up the color saturation on some of my sunset shots, only to find that it really wasn't the way to go, as it left abrupt color/saturation breaks in the image. If I'd known from experience what would happen, I probably would have shot with a max of +2 saturation in Vivid mode. Still, I was happy with a lot of shots I managed to get, and really think this is a camera that'll cause some pros to consider switching."

Check out the Sony A99 Gallery of sample high-resolution photos taken in the field by Dave, and our Still Life studio test shots taken by the IR lab, and let us know what you think! And if you want to know more about the Sony A99's capabilities and specs, be sure to read our Hands-on Preview.

 

 

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